


venus in taurus

by fatal



Series: venus 金星 planet of love [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, Post-Time Skip, Unrequited Love, kageyama pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:20:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23640703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatal/pseuds/fatal
Summary: At both age four and age twenty-one, Tobio carries all the longing of a child at the perimeter of something boundless, like a blue caldera that once was a volcano, or the hallway to a gymnasium with a high-vaulted ceiling, or even a moment of Kunimi’s attention.(ten reasons to stop casually sleeping with the boy you've found pretty since middle school.)
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Kunimi Akira
Series: venus 金星 planet of love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705384
Comments: 59
Kudos: 590





	venus in taurus

**Author's Note:**

> 3 things!
> 
> 1\. [this gorgeous drawing of kunikage](https://twitter.com/ajuyikes/status/1258634946853269505?s=20) in the blue party scene [by mikot](https://twitter.com/ajuyikes)  
> \+ this [art of the last lines by angel!!!! ](https://twitter.com/kageyamangst/status/1277505878258679809/photo/2)  
> 2\. [this kunikage playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3FEJ894PVwEU7ATGxqUZyM?si=FNTHJ_JvRCqJ_z6skSFwTw) that lovely aya made which i listened to religiously while writing this  
> 3\. [this city pop playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4KTR55SwT5I2fIdkFZi8xc?si=ORZo4SybQNqpAu8K5wPonQ) aka adlers afterparty dj setlist including miki matsubara songs!
> 
> that is all thank u i hope this makes u feel things!!
> 
> cw: mild sexual content (6, 9)

_Look at the light through the windowpane.  
_ _That means it’s noon, that means_  
_we’re inconsolable._  
_Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us._  
_These, our bodies, possessed by light._  
_Tell me we’ll never get used to it._

_-Richard Siken, "Scheherazade"_

  1. **i’ve forgotten how to look at you any other way.**



At age twenty-one, Tobio looks at Kunimi Akira with none of the ease of seeing a _boy_ (of which he is many kinds, hyphenated: college-boy, pretty-boy, boy-his-age) and all the quiet awe of looking at a landscape.

He doesn’t know when, exactly, did meeting Kunimi’s gaze transport him back to Mount Zaō in the summer and his four year old body, perched atop _Ojiisan’s_ shoulders like a clumsy, black-haired baby bird. There at the alcove between heaven and the rest of the world, a stubby finger points invisible laser beams toward the round, floorless turquoise of Okama crater lake.

At both age four and age twenty-one, Tobio carries all the longing of a child at the perimeter of something boundless, like a blue caldera that once was a volcano, or the hallway to a gymnasium with a high-vaulted ceiling, or even a moment of Kunimi’s attention.

  1. **i watch you dancing and something in my chest pinwheels forward like a topspin serve or a throwing knife or debris at the foot of a landslide.**



At some point between high school graduation and selections for Team Japan’s starting lineup, Kunimi takes Tobio’s face in two hands and kisses him for the first time (flushed, grinning in a crop tee, drunk out of his mind at the flickering center of a nightclub in Shibuya).

Lights blink from blue to magenta and there aren’t enough thoughts in Tobio’s head to stop him from kissing Kunimi back. Magenta shifts to violet and two shapes meet to fit perfect in the dark, nose-to-nose, shoulder-to-shoulder, waist-to-waist. Violet turns into half-second shadow and two bodies pull away with all the confused urgency of being jolted awake. Tobio spends the rest of the night stealing glances at Kunimi and pretending he doesn’t feel charred all over.

The day after, Tobio falls on his ass in the middle of a jump serve during an Adlers practice. Sure, most other people might fall in the middle of a jump serve and brush it off like it’s nothing, but _not_ the national team’s first string setter, not the star from Miyagi who pushed himself off the earth five times in a row to score that many service aces against France in Rio. Kageyama Tobio, six-foot-two boy-wonder of Japan, doesn’t just falter in the middle of a jump serve.

Something in the earth must’ve shifted that night because there’s no other explanation. Hoshiumi says as much in a laughing voice, but Tobio half-believes it all the same. Like, maybe all of Japan’s soil and cement were switched for invisible floors of sand, rough enough to knock Tobio off-balance even through the rubber soles of his _Mizuno_ Wave Lightning Z4s, and past the hard, gleaming linoleum of a gymnasium in Tokyo, and through the middle of each wall and iron-bolted door he’d fixed clean between himself and everyone else.

And so an accident of mouths cracks a line into the earth. And so Kunimi’s image at the center of Tobio’s vision shakes itself free from its boy-shape. And so Tobio looks at Kunimi now and sees the blue of a caldera he’d seen only once in his life, in the July of the year he’d felt most loved. And so what.

  1. **i still haven’t figured out how to tell both the truth and your name in one sure breath.**



And yet. If Tobio were being really honest with himself, it’d probably been this way ever since the timid line of his gaze first stuck to Kunimi in his first year at Kitagawa Daiichi. Stuck, then never really un-stuck. Tobio in middle school was all gangly limbs and uncertain hands and none of a setter’s deliberate grace. Kunimi in middle school was all soundless footfall and hooded eyes and hair parted at the center, looking like it’d be really, really soft to touch, maybe, probably, if he’d only let Tobio run a hand through the dark of it just once, only once.

  1. **we make our own rituals by moonlight.**



They’re at a house with a pool whose owner’s name they’d already forgotten, full of glittering strangers and blue neon light panels. A city pop mix with too much Miki Matsubara loops on in the background, filling the air with jazzy 80’s synths and pretty, lovesick vocals. Tobio isn’t like Romero, or Hoshiumi, who thrive in too-loud environments and go around accepting personal _congratulations_ for their win from everyone at the party. He doesn’t have their certain mouths, their effortless smiles, their easy conversation. But Tobio still tries to find the right words, really tries, as expected of Adlers’ celebrity setter. It's an exercise more exhausting than any grueling practice.

It’s a relief, then, to find Kunimi alone in the kitchen because Tobio knows he’s just the same. The two have an unspoken pact to never expect small talk from one another. The reminder of this comforts Tobio to no end.

Kunimi slouches, casual, against the marble island. A small, crystal stud on the side of his nose glints under the kitchen light, another thing changed about him since high school. He still has his cup raised to his lips when his eyes flit to a watching Tobio. Kunimi maintains eye contact while taking a sip, continues to while moving to set the drink aside. Even Kunimi’s most unhurried motions turn out somehow graceful, like he never needs to look, never needs to try.

Kunimi doesn’t bother to change the expression on his face, carelessly neutral except for the smallest hint of a smile lifting one mouth’s corner. Wordless and without rush, Kunimi approaches Tobio, brushes an airy hand along his wrist, and steps to move past him.

Tobio takes a moment to study the boy’s retreating back. He knows Kunimi’s the best at finding impossible pockets of quiet in any kind of environment. Or maybe quiet just follows Kunimi, like he’s full of secret gravity.

Tobio is quiet. He follows Kunimi, too.

  1. **one time you came over with your mama’s miki matsubara records and they sounded nice enough, but nothing you bring is ever nicer than the sound of your voice outside my door.**



Tobio lets his head roll back against the leather of a couch Kunimi’s led him to. He’s not quite drunk, but the gentle hum of victory and _shochu_ runs like warm water under his skin. Kunimi half sits on his lap, knees digging into the couch on either side of Tobio’s waist, and pins him to the headrest with only a look.

I could get drunk on this too, Tobio thinks, a little distant. Is that normal? Do other people sit on their friend’s lap like this at parties? Do they also lean like this into their touch, however sparse?

Tobio’s hands curl mindless around Kunimi’s hips, thumbs tugging gently at denim belt loops. They’re somewhere at the party’s periphery. The rest of the team are gods-know-where. Here, the room fills with a sweeping, blue light that turns Kunimi into a creature underwater.

“Thanks for always inviting me to these fancy things,” Kunimi says, lifting a hand to gesture vaguely around them. “It’s sweet. Makes me think you actually like my company.” He smiles faintly while saying this.

“You know I only invite you because these _fancy_ _things_ are so much worse when you’re not here,” Tobio admits, careless. He goes over what he just said and flushes a little. He thinks, ah, I probably shouldn’t drink more tonight.

“I know,” Kunimi replies easy, a touch smug. He laughs a little. “But really, Tobio, you spoil me too much.”

Tobio furrows his eyebrows. Like clockwork, Kunimi lifts an absent hand to smooth the crease there with a thumb. “Everyone here’s brought compliment gifts for Japan’s monster setter,” Kunimi says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And here I am, empty-handed.”

Tobio scowls. He could care less about _compliment gifts_ that pile up to collect dust in some corner of his apartment.

But Kunimi tilts his head, considering, and insists, “I’m terrible. But I can make it up to you, Tobio. When your team wins, next time, I’ll wait for you in the stands with roses. At least a dozen. Just like one of your fangirls.” A blush creeps its way up the back of Tobio’s neck, and the side of Kunimi’s mouth quirks up in a half-smile. The way Kunimi’s looking at him makes his stomach flip.

“Please don’t,” Tobio says, gaze flitting downward. “I don’t have enough vases to keep all the flowers I get.”

“I’ll get you vases, then.” 

Tobio just glares. (But it’s half-hearted, and Kunimi knows it.)

Kunimi sighs. “You know. It’s hard getting presents for someone with an Olympic-size salary. Birthdays must be boring for people who only lift a finger and get everything they want.”

“Not everything,” Tobio counters, then frowns. Not you, he doesn’t add. Tobio wills his hands to keep steady around Kunimi’s waist.

Kunimi hums in thought, smirk softening a little. Then he leans close to Tobio’s ear, voice going low like he’s letting him in on a secret. “But you know, Tobio, I could congratulate you in other ways.”

Kunimi’s face is so near, and Tobio feels like his body’s all nervous system, all nervous flutter. Tobio knows what he means. Ever since that night in Shibuya and the kiss at its center, he’s hummed suggestions like this before, coy, into Tobio’s ear at other parties, or over _tonkotsu_ ramen and flasks of hot sake, or in line for coffee with daylight-clear sobriety.

Even in a group, Kunimi finds a way to whisper. As long as Kindaichi’s or Hinata’s or _whoever’s_ back is turned, he leans in a little, says, _it’s nothing serious, Kageyama. Just think it’d be fun. Don’t monsters ever get lonely? Anyway, you have my number, you know, in case you ever start to get bored with just yourself._ Tobio can never tell if he’s being serious or not. Sometimes he wonders if Kunimi only says these things to laugh at how Tobio so easily flusters every time, without fail.

Hinata insists that Kunimi’s got a crush on him. Tsukishima tells him Kunimi’s just being a fuckboy. Either way, Tobio turns down Kunimi’s offer every time because for once he’s more inclined to believe Tsukishima than Hinata, and because he flinches at the thought of having to examine the weird, heavy feeling Kunimi puts inside his chest. (So Tobio ignores Miwa’s advice too, which is to just. Ask him about it.)

Kunimi’s breath ghosts close to his ear. The warmth of it pulls Tobio back to the weight on his lap, to the blueness of everything, to Yuki Saitou’s wistful vocals crooning through close speakers. And that lingering offer— _I could congratulate you in other ways._

Tobio thinks on it another moment. He realizes he can’t reply to Kunimi’s implicit question with anything but more questions, so he grits his teeth and forgoes words. Giving in to the tangle of impulse and _shochu_ warming the floor of his stomach, Tobio leans in to press a closed mouth against the curve of Kunimi’s jaw. He tightens his hold on Kunimi’s waist, pulls him a little closer. When Tobio later remembers doing this—and all it leads to after—he can’t pinpoint why it’s here, of all times, that he abandons safety. It’s probably a combination of things: the high of the win, the pull of his drink, the sound Kunimi makes when Tobio rolls his hips up and bites down gently on Kunimi’s neck. The way Kunimi looks in blue.

All he knows for sure is that buried in the smooth crook of Kunimi’s neck, he feels like he’s again at the edge of an endless lake and therefore his longing eclipses everything else. So Tobio lets his mouth drift, leaving slow, wet trails along and up the long line of his neck. He stops to close gentle teeth around Kunimi’s earlobe, tugs a little. Belated and slightly breathless, Tobio whispers, “Congratulate me, then.”

It’s an agreement in other words. Kunimi exhales something sharp, like he didn’t really expect Tobio to go along. He leans back to look at him, then nods when Tobio doesn’t flinch from his stare. Then the two of them are moving up from their spot, weaving through the house to find a room, any room. Kunimi’s fingers lace tight around Tobio’s wrist, eager to pull him inside. Someone locks the door, Tobio forgets who. Nobody flicks on the light switch, but a touch of slim blueness seeps in from under the door. Muffled city pop plays on from the hallway.

Kunimi fits a palm against Tobio’s chest, shoves him back against the door, connects their mouths roughly. A teasing line of teeth skirts over Tobio’s bottom lip and all of his thoughts still to a tight blank.

The press of Kunimi’s kiss travels from his mouth, to the line of his jaw, down the column of his throat. He tugs careless at the collar of Tobio’s shirt, almost hard enough to hurt the side of Tobio’s neck, far enough to sweep his mouth along an exposed shoulder, a shadowed collarbone.

  1. **we fuck for the first time at a schweiden adlers win afterparty and i can’t tell if everything’s a hundred times better for it or a hundred times worse.**



And then Tobio's watching Kunimi sink to his knees before him, nimble hands at work on the buttons of his jeans. Kunimi lifts his gaze up to meet Tobio’s and keeps it there, even as impatient hands drag coarse denim down his thighs, down his knees. Kunimi smirks a little at Tobio’s flushed expression.

“I’ve been waiting to do this all night,” Kunimi admits softly, eyelids lowered slightly. Tobio’s surprised to find that for a moment, Kunimi looks almost a little shy. “I’ve been wanting to, since you finished the last set. With your scary fucking service ace.”

Kunimi narrows his eyes, and any shyness spins itself into a small smirk. “Kindaichi was so excited. Everyone around me was screaming _Adlers_ , _Adlers,_ and _Tobio, Tobio_ , people who don’t really know you at all, and all I could think was,” his hands drag slow up the insides of his thighs, and Tobio’s breath comes out a little quicker. “Tobio. I want to be only one calling you that.”

" _Kunimi."_ His name leaves Tobio's lips bewildered, breathless. Kunimi’s pupils are blown wide, dark. 

“And that kingly smirk you had on was annoying, but also kind of hot,” Kunimi continues, hands dancing up to the waistband of Tobio’s boxers. “I couldn’t focus on anything else. I wanted to break that smirk into pieces.”

Kunimi’s touching him now, one hand gripping bare hips in place, and Tobio reaches out to tug, mindless, at the roots of Kunimi’s hair. Little, startled moans start to slip out of Tobio’s mouth, and Kunimi tightens his hold on his waist. Kunimi’s head sinks lower, mouth pink and soft around him, and his beauty’s a cobalt flame in the dark, and everything is sweet, and warm, and blue like summer.

  1. **we make our own rituals by daylight.**



Days later, Kunimi texts Tobio asking if they could meet up for coffee. Up until then Tobio’s been trying to avoid thinking about Kunimi altogether, directing all his focus into practice instead, because lately the thought of him makes his chest lurch like a cage overstuffed with too many birds. This becomes much harder when Kunimi’s face, washed in blue, starts appearing in all his dreams.

Across from him at the café, Kunimi looks so unfazed, as if nothing happened between them at all. Or maybe the whole thing really was just nothing to him. He probably doesn’t dream about it. Tobio tries to mimic Kunimi’s cool indifference. His expression twists closer to scowl.

“You know, Kageyama, I think we should try it again sometime,” Kunimi says, carefully looking at Tobio over a blue mug, steam rising up his face like a curtain.

Tobio frowns, not knowing what to say back to him. Yes, we should, because it was fun, and the memory of your lips is driving me insane and I’d give anything to have them on me again? No, we shouldn’t, because it was fun, but the memory of your lips is driving me insane and I’m scared of going more insane?

Yes, because I like you. No, because I like you, but I’ve never been in love.

Tobio glances down at the table, not saying anything at all.

  1. **i’m terrified that someone might knock all my walls down and make me into an open field. i’m more scared of you becoming that person someday.**



Kunimi raises an eyebrow at Tobio’s silence. He decides to change his question. “Do you regret it?”

“No, not really.” Tobio tilts his head up, meeting Kunimi’s eyes again.

“Hmm.” Kunimi stares at him, considering, and it takes everything in Tobio not to flinch away from his gaze. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed about Kunimi. Tobio remembers his half-lidded stare as always being this intense, even since middle school.

Then Kunimi says, smirking a little, “You’re blushing.”

“I’m not,” Tobio bites out, glaring even as his face pools up with more heat. Kunimi laughs at him, and the sound of it makes Tobio’s chest ache. He laughs so much more freely around Tobio now than in middle school. Kunimi studies him another moment, thoughtful.

“Ah. I get it now,” Kunimi says suddenly, eyes widening. He nods to himself solemnly, but Tobio glimpses the tiny smile he hides behind his mug. “I get it, the hesitation.”

“What?” The word comes out a little too harsh. Tobio wills his expression to keep carefully neutral. A little restless, Tobio lifts his own mug to sip. The coffee inside swirls pale with generous milk and sugar.

With all the plain apathy of remarking on the weather, Kunimi says, “Just because I’m horny, doesn’t mean I’m in love with you,” and Tobio nearly chokes on his coffee. But Kunimi keeps going, oblivious to the hammer he’d just cracked against Tobio’s chest. “If that’s what you’re worried about. Already figured Mister Gold Medal's emotionally unavailable. Too busy getting service aces for anything so _serious_.” Kunimi puts “serious” in air quotations with his fingers, amusement glinting off his eyes.

Tobio stares at him, at a loss for words again. “I wouldn’t say I’m _that_ busy,” he starts, but stops when he realizes he has no idea how to end that thought.

Kunimi, at least, doesn’t seem to make anything of it, going on to deliver what’s beginning to sound like a PowerPoint presentation on why the two of them should keep fucking. One-night stands with strangers you meet at clubs and bars are disgusting. Finding people to date through apps and mixers is a nuisance. Getting to know an entirely new person, in general, is exhausting.

Anyone could be a human trafficker. We see each other so regularly anyway, and neither of us are human traffickers. It’s convenient. Our apartments are a little far from each other, but I wouldn’t mind spending the night in your Olympic-salary-worthy high rise. This might be a surprise to you, but I’ve always wanted to wake up to a bird’s eye view of Tokyo, sunlight streaming in and warming my face through floor-to-ceiling windows.

We both already know that I’m good at making you feel good. You’re really hot. You think I’m hot, too. And we’ve been friends for so long, I can’t imagine _this_ getting in the way of that. You always pick up the phone when I call, no matter how late into the night it is.

  1. **miwa says i am the way i am because my venus is in sagittarius. your venus is in taurus. apparently we love differently.**



They’re a little drunk again, the next time it happens. And it keeps happening because Tobio’s learned that he can’t say no to Kunimi when it comes to this, not anymore, now that Tobio’s skin clings onto the phantom weight of Kunimi against it. Now that his body can put a name to its craving. 

But then they’re not drunk at all, and Tobio feels something in him tip over and shatter. It starts with a late night invitation to watch subtitled Wong Kar Wai films on the floor of Tobio’s apartment. (Kunimi’s the one inviting, but he never offers his own place.) It's not long before Tobio gives in to a few long kisses, and eventually he lets Kunimi’s hands distract him enough to lose all track of the storyline.

Kunimi dips his head between Tobio’s thighs as the closing scene of _Fallen Angels_ plays behind them like a backdrop, Michelle Reis on the back of a motorcycle that runs, endless, down a dim green road. Between hitched breaths, Tobio faintly registers her character’s closing lines— _the road isn’t very long, and I know I’ll be getting off soon. But at this moment I’m feeling such lovely warmth._

  1. **it’s nothing serious, kageyama.**



Later into the night of the afterparty, the one with glittering strangers and blue light everywhere and a Miki Matsubara soundtrack, Kunimi lies on the floor with his head on Tobio’s lap. They're both only half-dressed. Tobio cards careful fingers through the dark of Kunimi’s hair, and he realizes faintly that oh, it’s even softer than he first thought it’d be.

Kunimi jokes about getting to brag to college friends and tinder matches that he’s hooked up with an Olympic athlete. Surely it'll make him quite the catch. He teases Tobio, saying he won’t say his name, _promise_ , but he might tell them he’s “so much louder getting head than when he's talking normally!”

Kunimi laughs at Tobio’s instant scowl and tilts his head up to kiss it right off him. Tobio startles a little at the tenderness of it, and at the taste of himself in Kunimi’s mouth. He looks down at Kunimi and sees a crater lake, and he could drown, maybe, in the cold of him. Kunimi looks at Tobio back and sees only a boy.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading i love u!


End file.
